Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1904 — VENEZUELAN DECISION. [ARTICLE]

VENEZUELAN DECISION.

Three Warlike Power* Given Prefer* ence in Collection. The Hague arbitration tribunal, which has been considering the claims of the blockading powers for preferential treatment of their claims against Venezuela, has decided unanimously that the three blockading powers—-Great Britain, Germany and Italy—have the right to a preference of 30 per cent of the customs duties at La (iuayra and Porto Cabello, the litigants to pay their own costs in the procedure and divide equally the costs of the tribunal. The United States Is commissioned to carry out the decision of the tribunal within three months. In giving judgment the tribunal points out that it has been guided by international law and the equity of the ease and that the protocols signed at Washington since Feb. 13, 1003, and particularly the protocol of May 7, the obligatory nature of which cannot be doubted, form the legal basis of its sentence; that the tribunal is not competent to question the Jurisdiction of the mixed commissions at Caracas or to judge their action or the character of the warlike operations of the blockading powers, or to decide if the throe blockading powers exhausted all pacific means to prevent the necessity for employing force. The tribunal decides that It Is In a position only to certify that since 1901 Venezuela refused arbitration, proposed on several occasions by Germany and Great Britain; that after the war no formal treaty of peace was concluded; that the operations of the bloekaders were stopped before they had received satisfaction for all their claims, and, further, that the question of preferential treatment was submitted to arbitration. The tribunal declares that it found and recognized in these facts evidence in favor of the great principle of arbitration in all phases of international conflict. The decision of The Hague tribunal in the Venezuelan case granting preference to the blockading powers, Great Britain, Germany and Italy, was received at the State Department with marked signs of disapproval. It was held that such an award favoring the nations that resorted to war at the expense of jpeaceful creditors was calculated to put a premium on war.